From Tyson to TikTok: the boxing fan generational gap is widening

With fights hidden behind paywalls and few stars breaking through, the once-popular sport risks irrelevance among the young fans it desperately needs to survive

Boxing is popular with young people in countries like the United Kingdom and Mexico. But it doesn't resonate with young sports fans in the United States the way it once did.

Fans of a sport - particularly, team sports - develop lifelong allegiances at an early age and often pass it on to their children. There was a time when fathers and sons in America sat down in front of a television set together and watched Gillette Friday Night Fights or boxing on weekend afternoons. Now, if they sit down together at all, they watch football.